


The Nightingales, Volume 3, by Gallus Desidenius

by HopeStoryteller



Series: When Fate is Rewritten [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Missing Scene, Sort Of, more like Missing Lorebook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeStoryteller/pseuds/HopeStoryteller
Summary: Volume 3 of the books that describe the Nightingales.Alternate description: I attempt to write a lorebook. Perhaps it can be found ingame, if you're exceptionally lucky. Perhaps, if Karliah likes you enough, she'll let you borrow it. Perhaps, if you give it back, she finally moves on from Gallus and is available as a follower and a marriage candidate.There is of course a perfectly functional mod for making Karliah a follower and potentially marriageable but it doesn't have this, now, does it?
Series: When Fate is Rewritten [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934815
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	The Nightingales, Volume 3, by Gallus Desidenius

As a Nightingale, I feel compelled to place quill to parchment and record my thoughts regarding my knowledge of our order. If one day the Nightingales should vanish from Tamriel, then let this tome serve as a reminder of what we once were and to dispel any rumor or hearsay about our purposes and our motivations.

My own history is far less interesting than that of my fellow Nightingales, particularly that of Karliah and of Mercer Frey. However, I have already written down all that I am at liberty to share of Karliah’s past, and while Mercer’s makes a very good story, I understand why he wishes to keep it hidden from even our future fellows. The best stories, after all, are those with the most pain.

Unlike Mercer and Karliah, I was not born in Skyrim, nor did I come here until I was already a young adult. I spent my early years in Cyrodiil, kept safe within the crumbling walls of the Imperial City itself. My mother was an instructor at Arcane University since well before I was born, and may still be one there today. I have more pressing issues to make inquiries into than if my mother is still alive, particularly considering the fact that I wouldn’t set foot in the same room as her again if my life depended on it.

Let me be perfectly clear: my mother was not, necessarily, a bad person. As far as morality goes, hers was never in question. She was one of the University’s most beloved instructors, while I was there, and she was a good instructor. The study of magic, and by extension her beloved Arcane University, meant everything to her. 

Consequently, there was very little room left in her heart for me.

I will put this bluntly, and keep it relatively brief: she was exceptional in nearly every field, except one. She was a terrible mother. She could have been worse, I suppose. She never physically harmed me, nor deprived me of the basic necessities I required for survival. Indeed, she provided me with an education the likes of which I would not have gotten perhaps anywhere else in Tamriel.

But she never loved me. In the epic that was her life, I was merely a footnote in the section everyone skimmed over while reading. 

For a time, I had resigned myself to be just that: a footnote, trapped in her shadow for however long I would live. In magic, I focused on the only school I was naturally skilled at, to the exclusion and eventual stunting of all others—and even the most incredible feats of illusion magic were not enough to make her proud. Nothing would ever be enough to make her proud. I knew that, deep down, long before I outwardly acknowledged it.

I did not and could not outwardly acknowledge it, because if I did that I would have had to acknowledge the fact that there was nothing I could do to change it. Except, one day, there was something. A newcomer to the University, a researcher from Skyrim’s College of Winterhold calling himself Lorthus. His credentials were impressive, even by Arcane’s impossible standards. His magical skills were perhaps, even more impressive.

Yet somehow, I was immediately suspicious of him. To this day I am unsure what it was that gave him away. Perhaps it was the way his eyes lingered a bit too long on the various magical artefacts and trinkets we housed at the University, or perhaps it was his odd habit (for a researcher) to never turn his back to an exit. The most likely conclusion I can draw, however, is that it was merely the way he carried himself: self-assured, but not excessively so. Confident, but not cocky. He reminded me of a tightly coiled spring, ready to leap into action at any moment should the situation have called for it.

For a researcher within the hallowed halls of what was undeniably the most prestigious learning institution in Tamriel at the time, there was no reason I could think of then that he would be that on edge… unless he wasn’t a researcher in all. In retrospect, there were plenty of other, perfectly valid explanations for an individual new to Arcane to be on edge, the surprising and concerning amount of literally cutthroat tactics employed in academia being one of the most likely.

In retrospect, I think no matter what explanation I tried to come up with, I would have eventually investigated Lorthus further, out of curiosity if nothing else. Unfortunately for a much younger, marginally more impulsive Gallus, Lorthus was good at covering his tracks. Too good. I had to resort to some tricks of my own to even come close to catching him in the act of… well, whatever I thought he was doing.

It came to a head one night when I was caught, not by Lorthus, but by my mother. She accused me of sneaking around (fair) and attempting to steal some of Arcane’s most prized possessions (not fair at all and, at that point in time, not remotely accurate.) Somehow, my own investigation into Lorthus had ended up with me being framed for his actions. Cruel irony, that.

I would have been arrested and evicted from the grounds permanently at best, had it not been for Lorthus himself. Somehow, my mother trusted him, a newcomer who was almost certainly a thief, more than me, her own son. Somehow, her trusting his word over mine worked out in my favor, as Lorthus looked at me, looked at her, and promptly lied through his teeth to cover for me.

Logically speaking, he had no reason to cover for me, particularly not when we both knew perfectly well what I had been doing sneaking around the halls late at night. It would have almost certainly, in the long run, have been easier to say the truth—that he hadn’t seen me at all that night—or to even dig my hopefully not literal grave much deeper by going along with my mother. It would have definitely made his job, and the real reason he was at Arcane University, much easier to accomplish successfully.

And yet he did cover for me, and for that I will be eternally grateful. In that one action, he had done more for me than my mother had done for me in her (and my) entire life. He told me later that he had intended to use the fact that I owed him to make me help—but after that, he didn’t even have to.

Thievery did not come to me naturally. Neither, to tell the truth, did stealth, or any of the other skills that most involved in crime typically employ. But during the months Lorthus stayed at Arcane, making preparations and carefully laying plans for the heist he was here for, he trained me as well.

I was far from his level of skill when the fateful night came, but I would like to think it wouldn’t have gone off nearly as flawlessly without my help and inside knowledge. Lorthus returned to Skyrim with his mission accomplished. More importantly, he left me with an invitation that if I ever wanted to leave my mother’s shadow for good, I would be welcome in Riften.

There came a day I took him up on it, and my only regret concerning that is that I didn’t come to Skyrim sooner. There came too a day after that, when Lorthus and Dralsi inducted me of all people into the Nightingales with them. Many years have passed since then. Lorthus was replaced by my good friend Mercer, and Dralsi’s daughter Karliah took up her mother’s mantle. 

Perhaps, if we are lucky, Mercer will consent to his own history being the subject of the next volume. But I cannot blame him if he refuses. 

It was hard enough, in truth, to commit my own past to writing.

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this canon for any and all fics I write involving Skyrim. Also, I'd make this a mod myself if I knew how/had the time. If anyone wants to, you're welcome to, just give me a link so I can do it. ~~I'd be willing to help voice Karliah if you needed additional lines for her outside canon ones.~~


End file.
